Six Days Thou Shalt Labor, More or Less--Busyness and the Business of Heaven
http://www.regenerator.com/7.3/johnson.html
Well, I've been fascinated by Nouwen's diary. He seems to be pursuing solitude, time with God, removing the obstacles that prevent him from spending time with God.
Yesterday I found the above article, but I didn't read it until today. Now this is a very interesting article in the context of reading about a Catholic priest (Nouwen) who retreats from his public life to spend 7 months at a Trappist Monastery. At this monastery Nouwent rises early, works, occassionally talks with a mentor and I assume he prays and studies. The article talks about leisure and scolds the Protestant work ethic as now being far to secular.
Some questions come to mind:
Do we keep ourselves busy to prevent us from having to experience the transformation that comes from solitude with God?
How do we find solitude outside of a monastery?
And in fact what is solitude? I feel I sense the shape of it, but not it's details. Do I just sit there? The idea is attractive, but how?
I like how Nouwen brought the concepts of solitude and relationship together. I think he argues that we cannot have real relationship before we have solitude. Without solitude our relationships are shadows. We don't understand our lives as individuals, we don't value others as individuals in relationship with God. We are likely to use people to fill ourselves.
Enough high faluting talk for today. More thoughts as they come along.
8:02:03 AM 
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